Ab Ovo
by indelible
Summary: [It terrified me because I realized just how far apart we were. That, even if she had sought out my hand and physical contact was no stranger to our relationship now, the lack of words we had always had was still there.] SasuHina.


**Ab Ovo**

Urei Sachi

_"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken."_

_-Fyodor Dostoevsky_

i.

'I want to write a story,' she said, 'but the problem is there's nothing left to write about.'

I glanced at her and allowed a small smile to slip from my mask of concentration. She didn't see it. She was too busy thinking about her story. Ten inches separated our shoulders, but she decided to close the space between us by patting my elbow in an attempt to make me respond.

'I'm trying my best to not get us killed when we cross the street,' I told her, taking her hand in mine when the light turned red, 'so it would be in your best interest to watch where you're walking.'

She shut up.

We walked together in silence, hand in hand; it was an alien sensation, I realized, because we were never really close to begin with. It was as if I were compensating for something I – rather, we – had lost, something to make us feel less lonely than we really were.

There were about seven people crossing the street with us. One of them was a middle-aged business man; three were high school students dolled up for what could possibly be a date or a trip to the nearest mall. There was a tired-looking middle-aged mother that was half-dragging her teary-eyed son with her. The last person was a college kid who chewed gum like a maniac, hands stuffed in his pockets, and seemed completely oblivious to the cars honking at us to get a move on, and that was what we really were: deaf to the world. With these people, we probably looked like two almost-but-not-quite lovers, stuck in the awkward stages of 'are-we-or-are-we-not?', carrying the arrogance of teenagers in love with themselves and the world.

There was one significant thing, however.

We barely knew each other.

The light turned green, and behind us was the conversation we could have had but would never have again, trapped in that blur of the past and the swarm of cars that never really had a single direction in mind.

Lost in that sea of strangers, we were truly alone.

I checked my watch and turned to face her.

'Do you want me to walk the rest of the way with you, or should I go?'

I didn't really want her to agree to my first question; it was already six in the evening, and it would take an hour before I could get home, but my mother instilled a sense of propriety in me ever since I was old enough to distinguish the difference between a spoon and a fork. Besides, I reasoned, if she got raped somewhere along the darkened alley that was unavoidable in the city, then the person her parents would hunt down would be me.

She seemed to consider it for a minute, but she shook her head and smiled weakly.

'I'll be fine without you.'

I left.

ii.

Some time between the train ride home and the wrestling match with my keys, I realized I missed a point she was trying to make, but it was too late to go back.

iii.

We were not friends by choice. It was, in all honesty, simple a matter of convenience and necessity. We had the same route in going to school, and we had the same schedule for the semester, so, after the tenth awkward silence, we decided to move from acquaintances to 'kind-of-friends'.

It was easier to wait for one another in the same fast-food restaurant and take the trip to school in amiable conversation than to avoid the other's eyes and focus on our cell phones or the road.

It wasn't easy to talk to her, though. She and I had virtually nothing in common except this shared road, so our chats were always cordial at best, but never really the type you'd expect from people like us. I was never really polite around people my age, and she did her best to get _out_ of conversations rather than in them; with each other, we danced around as lightly as we could with clogs on our feet.

Sometimes I wondered why we even fooled ourselves into believing that things would take a turn for the best someday, but there was this suffocating tension in the air whenever we trailed off and cut the conversation entirely. It was as if the words kept us alive, but it was the creation of these words that really drove us apart.

I could never say the right things to her; she probably felt the same way. It wasn't like we weren't mature enough to handle whatever rudeness we might detect (or imagine to feel), nor was it a matter of etiquette. It just didn't feel right to talk to her, smile at her, and share the same mode of transportation with her.

So when she grasped my hand one day, I almost jumped.

She didn't say anything, and I didn't make an effort to start talking, but it was as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

It terrified me, though, because I realized just how far apart we were. That, even if she had sought out my hand and physical contact was no stranger to our relationship now, the lack of words we had always had was still there.

When we went our separate ways, nothing changed.

iv.

I cut class in March and went to the movies to cool off. I stayed there for five hours, staring at the same screen without blinking at the blood gushing out of decapitated heads, munching popcorn and drinking coke alternately, mechanically, like some wind-up toy or an inane track on infinite loop. Chew. Chew. Slurp. Slurp. Chew. Chew—

Someone took a seat beside me and smacked my head. I glared at the person and fought the urge to hit back. It was a battle I lost, unfortunately, and, fortunately, it was someone I knew, so retaliation was excusable.

'What are you doing here?' It was Naruto. 'Hinata was looking for you.'

I chewed on my lower lip and turned back to the movie. 'Shut up. I'm trying to listen to the movie.'

Naruto stared at me. When he spoke, he used the tone of a kindergarten teacher trying to comprehend the logic of a five-year old. 'Dude. The movie's in Chinese.'

The subtitles burned my eyes. 'Didn't feel like listening to the lectures.'

We watched the protagonist recite his monologue, his sword looking like a plastic toy painted a garish gold color. It stood out like a sore thumb barely covering a black eye. It looked different. Unnatural.

Strange.

It wasn't real.

His voice was hushed, like he was trying his best to keep it low despite his curiosity. 'What's up?'

The female lead had a seizure. Or a violent coughing fit. I wasn't sure. It looked the same to me. She was kind of pretty, but she didn't merit much of my attention. 'I saw my ex.'

That was all she was. Just a pretty face.

For a moment, I wasn't sure which one I was referring to anymore.

Naruto laughed. 'Oh. Tragic.'

I ignored him.

'Look, don't kill yourself over it. It'll pass.' He ruffled my hair affectionately. 'That scene there? Love isn't really like that. You don't just spontaneously decide to poison yourself because you know you could never bear the thought of losing your significant other. You live, just because you do.'

'And besides,' Naruto continued, 'It's not easy, you know. Dying for someone else. It's never been easy. You just wonder what'll happen afterwards, and you start to get scared because you know that you've only got one chance to live, because even if there is this thing called resurrection, we never really remember what we were before.'

I didn't say anything, and we continued to watch the film like fascinated scientists probing into a world that existed before we even knew it did.

It did seem strange, though, because sitting there in the darkened movie theater seemed more of a dream and less of reality; I doubted that this was, in all actuality, really happening, and this wasn't just some 1 a.m. nightmare that I couldn't wake up from.

Dreams like that sucked, even if you got to watch the hero die a gruesome death in the end. That's all that really mattered in the first place, anyway. What happens next, and how you die.

I clenched my jaw, and, even after the credits were finished, we waited for something to happen.

Of course, nothing did. It was the end.

v.

I showed up at our meeting place earlier than expected, but she didn't seem surprised. Rather, it was like she had accepted this part of me despite going off without notice, or she simply chose not to acknowledge that yesterday ever happened.

It was easier to talk to her after that.

Somehow, without me noticing, a strain had been lifted.

There were still many tangled threads to go through, and many silences stored for future use, but it didn't matter.

v.

I always thought that it was strange that we could never communicate verbally as well as we could without having to resort to using our vocal chords, but people are strange, and relationships are stranger.

I didn't tell her anything, and she never asked, but, the next day, she smiled and wished me a happy birthday.

I blinked.

'Oh, don't think I'm a stalker,' I imagined her saying, hr eyes twinkling mischievously, 'I just know a lot about you.' _Strange_, a part of me whispered, _why does she sound like your ex instead of herself?_

I brushed it off.

'Sounds like a stalker to me,' I'd retort. And it was all light and teasing. Comfortable, even.

'Make a wish,' she'd tell me, 'it doesn't have to be about world peace or anything. It could be anything that stems from selfish reasons. It could be revenge, or money, or new clothes, or whatever. That's what wishes are for.'

'What? No candles to blow out before I wish?

'Well. You could always blow out the sun.' And she was right. It was already setting.

I closed my eyes and wished.

But it was only my imagination, and I turned away, suddenly embarrassed.

The conversation ended before it even began.

vi.

I didn't see her for a whole semester after that, and I didn't make an effort to find her. A part of me accepted it as easily as I had accepted her into my life (which, truthfully, wasn't easy at all). It bugged me that instead of having nightmares about my ex, I began to have nightmares about _her_.

So when I saw her in a coffee shop one afternoon, idly sipping tea with a handsome guy with long hair, I... snapped.

I entered the coffee shop and, before her eyes lit up in recognition, I yanked her away from the table, dragging her out of the room.

She wasn't impressed.

Her eyes darted from right to left. She hated scenes, especially in public. 'Wh-What was that?' She asked, eyes widening in trepidation.

I ignored her. 'Where the hell have you been?'

She suddenly looked thoughtful and strangely solemn.

'Sasuke,' she said, 'it wasn't working out.' Then she hesitated before patting my arm, as if afraid that something else would happen.

It was then that I realized that it wasn't just me who was thinking that it didn't feel like some sort of friendship at all.

'I'm jealous,' I told her.

She blushed.

'Oh dear,' she laughed quietly. 'He's my cousin.'

I looked at her, really looked, and, strangely, I didn't think of my ex. At all.

I took a deep breath. 'Do you want to start over?'

She seemed surprised and... pleased.

She took my hand into hers, and I smiled at her.

We didn't need any words.

Everything was falling into place.

---

END


End file.
